Taken

Chapter 13

RIKKI

September 9, 2013 6:00 p.m.

I had another dream. This time the Huskies were playing the Los Angeles Waves, another one of my least-favorite teams in the NBL.

Blair Castro had the ball and was dribbling it up the court once again. Suddenly, a defenseman was all up in his face, and Blair passed the ball to Minnesota's best center, Nicky Green. All of a sudden, Nicky was on the ground, and the Waves' center, Carlos Nelson, had the ball!

As the Waves and Huskies ran down the court, Nicky was still on the ground. After Carlos slammed down a dunk, a few of the Huskies' medical people ran to Nicky. As the medical people checked out Nicky, everyone in the stadium looked up at the Jumbotron to watch the replay. In the replay, you could see that Carlos Nelson elbowed Nicky Green in the temple, and Nicky just crumpled to the ground as Carlos grabbed the ball.

My dream ended there.

"Ugh," I groaned as I slowly regained consciousness.

"Rikki!" cried Adam when he noticed that I was awake. "Are you okay?"

"I guess I feel okay for someone that just got whipped. So what happened after I blacked out?"

"Well, Jeff whipped Troy in the face after he ran up to Jeff."

"How long was I out?" I asked, still in a daze.

"About seven hours. Troy brought us supper about an hour ago. His face looked nasty. He had a huge purple gash on his right cheek. He looked pretty mad, so I don't know what he thinks of you anymore," Adam replied.

"Ugh," I groaned again. "I hurt."

"I bet. Watching you get tortured was horrible. I don't know if I'd be able to do it again," Adam replied, looking haunted.

"Well, you won't have to watch that happen again, hopefully," I replied. "And I'll definitely make sure that doesn't happen to you, either."

"Thanks, Rikki. Hopefully we'll get out of here before anything else bad happens."

"I sure hope so," I agreed. I gasped suddenly, remembering my dream. "I just remembered," I said. "I had a dream while I was knocked out. You know the NBL player, well ex-NBL player, Carlos Nelson? Well, he's Troy's cousin. Carlos was kicked out of the NBL after he got into a nasty fistfight with another player. Maybe Carlos is going to come help Jeff after Troy leaves for Miami."

"That makes a lot of sense!" cried Adam. "Dang it, that means we won't have a good chance of escaping here, not with that guy around. Isn't Carlos, like, seven feet tall?"

"Yeah, he's seven-two. Since Carlos is probably going to show up around here sometime soon, we'll need to think of a new plan quickly," I retorted.

"What should we do now?" asked Adam.

"Well, I guess all we can do it sit and wait, unless you have any ideas."

"Nope, I don't have any ideas. You?"

"Nope," I replied. "Well this stinks."

"Totally," said Adam sarcastically.

Just then, Adam and I heard voices outside of the bunkhouse.

"Hey, let us go!" cried a guy with a deep voice.

"Welcome to your new home," said a voice that sounded a lot like Troy's, only much lower.

The door to the bunkhouse opened, revealing Jeff, restraining a girl that looked to be Adam's age, and Carlos, the ex-NBL player, restraining a boy that I could've recognized anywhere.

"Oh my gosh," I gasped under my breath. "It's him."